


wake me.

by boldly (techburst)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Sam Remembers Hell, and is also good at keeping secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 11:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6421954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/techburst/pseuds/boldly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>when hallucinations just aren't enough, and it all comes back around again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wake me.

In his dreams it's as if he never left. It's fire and blood and pain, the broken sound of his own voice as he repeats the same word over and over. A single syllable like a prayer he more than knows will go unheard, a quivering note of desperation as his mind attempts to rationalize a lost cause. 

_"Dean."_

Like he can hear him from the pit and will come running, as he always has, to save his brother from whatever mess he's managed to get himself into. 

His brain doesn't bother registering that there's no way he can save him from this. 

The only thing it _does_ register is the sensation of being flayed open, laid bare, the torturous smile from a fallen angel. Breath so cold over the nape of Sam's neck when he speaks that he may as well have been sculpted from ice. Words meant to hurt, for all they're whispered with the ghost of a smile, the brush of fingers through blood-and-sweat-damp hair. 

_He never loved you, Sam._

_Don't you remember what he said, about hunting you?_

_I'm all you have, Sam._

_I'm all you've ever had._

He tries to close his eyes against it, but he can _hear_ the laughter in Lucifer's smile, taste the anger and betrayal and _loathing_ that threatens to take him over, corrupt him and leave him as black on the inside as a dying ember left smoldering in the aftermath. Filthy and used, scorned. 

And all he has is the name of the one he would die for. Over and over again. If it means saving him from this. 

_"Dean."_

When he wakes, it's to the pressure of his brother's hand on his shoulder and a tightness in his chest that makes him feel like he's just seconds from suffocating, the taste of ash on the back of his tongue. He's shaking down to his bones, and the cold trickle of sweat down the back of his neck brings a tremor he can feel all the way down to the base of his spine. 

"Sammy, hey." His voice is soft, soft like it's never been, quiet concern buried deep in green eyes. Because he doesn't want to make it obvious, even if everything about him - the angle of his body toward his brother's, the curl of fingers over the side of his neck - screams _tell me you're okay_. 

"Bad dream?"

Sam finally breathes, and his ribs creak with the effort behind it. 

"Yeah."


End file.
